April the Giraffe's Livestream

Overview

April the Giraffe's Livestream refers to an online video feed documenting the pregnancy of a giraffe at the Animal Adventure Park in Hapursville, New York, who gave birth in mid April 2017.

Background

In 2002, April the reticulated giraffe was born at the Catskill Game Farm in Catskill, New York. In 2006, she was transferred to the Adirondack Animal Land in Broadalbin, New York. In 2015, April was relocated to the Animal Adventure Park, where she later mated with the 3-year-old giraffe Oliver. In February 2017, the park launched a YouTube channel featuring a livestream of April to document the her pregnancy.

Developments

YouTube Controversy

In March, the live stream was briefly removed from YouTube after animal rights activists reported the stream for allegedly violating content guidelines, but was restored within one hours following an outpouring of complaints.^[2]

GoFundMe

In March, a GoFundMe^[1] page was created to sponsor and support the Animal Adventure Park giraffes. Within one month, the fund received over $139,500 of its $50,000 goal.

Birth

On April 15th, 2017, April gave birth to a 5'9'' and 129 lb male calf while being streamed on YouTube, watched by upwards of 1.2 million viewers (shown below). Within 48 hours, a video of the birth gathered upwards of 14 million views and 1,200 comments on YouTube.

After the birth, the @AprilTheGiraffe^[3] Twitter feed posted a photograph of April with her newborn calf, which garnered upwards of 21,500 likes and 7,700 retweets in two days (shown below).

Search Interest

External References